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Apr 29, 2009

Pesarattu is a very popular breakfast in South India. But Pesarattu with upma is a popular delicacy in Andhra pradesh. This recipe was given to me by a telugu friend. This is a healthy and filling breakfast, could be eaten as a brunch.
Pesarattu dosa is made with mung dal and could be made more healthier with sprouted mung dal. And the upma I made is using tomato which is also popular in Andhra as tomato baath. The pesarattu stuffed with upma tastes its best with coconut chutney.

Pesarattu
Soak the dal overnight. Grind it to a smooth paste with a little ginger. Add salt. Add water to get a consistency of dosa batter. You dont need to ferment the batter.
Pour a ladleful of the batter onto the hot tava and spread it into a neat circle. Add little oil on the edges.When one side gets roasted, flip the dosa to cook the other side too.For the tomato baath/upma
Roast the rava adding a little oil or ghee for 5 to 6 minutes. Meanwhile boil some water. Heat oil in a pan. Add mustard, udid dal, green chillies,asafoetida and peanuts. Add tomatoes. cook them well adding a few drops of water. Now add the other frozen vegetables if using. Cook well. Add the roasted rava. Mix well. Add the boiled water. Mix and stir till all the water evaporates and the rava cook well and forms a thick mass.Assembling-
Place a pesarattu dosa on the serving plate. Add a large spoonful of the upma on one half of the dosa just like you place masala in a dosa in case of masala dosa. Cover with the other half by folding it. Serve with a spicy coconut chutney.

For the coconut chutney-
Grind the coconut, roasted gram ,green chillies and curry leaves with a little water to a smooth paste. Season the chutney with mustard seeds, asafoetida and udid dal. Add salt.(You can try a adding a tsp of tamarind pulp when grinding.)

Apr 22, 2009

I am sure that everyone by now know my love for baking and trying out new bakes each time. But its almost more than a month, I baked something. This one was lying in my draft for quite sometime waiting for its turn to be posted. And the day seemed to have arrived.
Now coming to todays recipe, I have always been fascinated by the cream stuffed buns available in most of the supermarkets in Singapore and it (along with some fruits) constitutes my breakfasts for most of the days. So I have always wanted to try out stuffed buns and this one was one of my baking experiments which was quite successful. Though I want to try some savoury stufffing, due to some time constraints, I used a little orange marmalade inside the buns. I will surely come up with some savoury buns soon. Till then I hope you enjoy this sweet buns.Ingredients-
Bread flour- 2 1/2 cup
Wheat flour- 1 1/2cup
Banana- 1 (optional, but a good option)
Sugar- 1/2cup
Salt- 1/2tsp
Active dry yeast- 2tsp
Warm water- 3/4 cup
Canola oil - 1/4 cup
Orange maramalade- 1/2 cup
Tutty fruity- for the toppingMethod-
Add the yeast in warm water in a mixing bowl and leave it for 10 minutes to froth. Then add salt and sugar and the flours and mashed banana if using and knead to smooth, elastic and non sticky dough. Coat the dough with oil. Cover the bowl with a cloth and leave it in a warm place for 2 hours so that it rises and doubles in volume.
After 2 hours, punch the dough and knead it for sometime. Then make 10 to 12 equal sized balls with it. Roll the ball with a rolling pin into a small circle. Place some marmalade in the center of the circle. And again seal it giving it a ball /bun shape flattening it a little.
Leave this for around 1 hour for rising. Place some tutty fruity on the top if using. Preheat the oven at 180c. Bake them for 40 minutes at 180c. Cool on a metal rack.

Apr 20, 2009

Things have been really busy with me for almost two months, So am not able to post frequently, neither I am able to visit your blogs and even if I squeeze in sometime to visit your blogs, I am not able to leave a comment. But I am sure I will get back to my normal routine in a few days.
I saw this healthy recipe of parathas on cookery show by sanjeev kapoor and made them a couple of times. They are really healthy as well as delicious, easy to make and quite filling too. Basically I loved the idea of using raw uncooked vegetables in them.You can just have them with some curd or pickle.

Method-
Knead a soft dough with all the above ingredients. Make Lemon shaped balls with them.Roll them into a thick circle. Dust little flour if required. Heat a girdle/tava. Place the paratha on it and cook on both sides till brown spots appear on them. Rub ghee/oil/water on them while cooking.
Serve hot with curd or pickle.

Apr 14, 2009

A very happy new year(according to tamil calender)/happy Chitra Vishu to all the readers of creative Saga!!

Chitra vishu is the tamil new year which falls on the first of chitrai month according to the tamil calender ..i.e on 14th of April.

As a general practice ,on this day, the first thing we do is to worship the god where lots of fruits and vegetables ,rice and cereals as well as money and gold are displayed in front of a mirror by one of the elders in the house and one is supposed to see the reflection of all these things in the mirror. This is vishu kani. And then the elders gift the young with money. This is called kaineetam.

Tamil food or saapadu is generally a three course meal. First the rice is taken with sambar, then with rasam and finally with curd. This is accompanied with a kootu or avial( vegetable with gravy) and poriyal /curry(dry vegetable usually) and pachadi(something like raitha). Then the other richer accompaniments are payasam, vadai and appalams.

Today I cooked a simple lunch , though I wouldn't call it too simple. I never remember whipping up an elaborate lunch like this. But of course I replaced payasam with kesari. I did not fry vadais and appalams instead used some readilly available potato chips.

Food is served on the banana leaves. And each item occupies a very specific and special position on the leaf.

Neem flowers are fried in ghee and added to all the food especially the pachadi on this day.

Poriyal I made is a simple stir fry of potatoes and carrots and then added some grated coconut after the veges cook well. I have used a seasoning of mustard seed, udid dal and channa dal and red chillies.

I made a instant mango pickle by chopping the raw mango to small cubes and then added some turmeric powder, red chilly powder and salt. You can't store this for a long time.

The pachadi made with mango called as mangai pachadi. In this, the raw mango is cut into small pieces and cooked in water with a little turmeric powder and a pinch of salt. Then add some jaggery and cook till it mixes well. Now thicken with a little flour(rice or wheat)mixed in water.

Do leave a comment or mail me if you need a exact recipe for a pachadi, rasam and sambar. I will post it sometime.

Apr 8, 2009

I found this recipe in the packet containing dessicated coconut (Bake king) which is used in bakes. It sounded quite interesting and I made it. It tasted really good. It is called "magic pie" because as it cooks, it forms a crust at the bottom, custard in the middle and a coconut topping. You can serve this dessert with some ice cream.

Ingredients-

Eggs- 4

Butter- 50g

Salt- a pinch

Castor sugar - 175g

Plain flour- 75g

Baking powder- 1/2tsp

Milk- 425ml

Dessicated coconut- 110g

Vanilla essence- 1tsp

Method-

Preheat oven at 180c.

Whisk all the ingredients together until thoroughly combined. Pour into a greased pie dish. Bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Apr 6, 2009

It was Ramnavami a couple of days back and I made panakam and neer mor which are traditionally prepared in Tamilnadu for this occasion.Panakam is a drink made with jaggery and neer mor is a kind of spiced buttermilk. Both the drinks tastes like nectar during the hot summers.Though I am posting this a little late, these two drinks are so refreshing that you can prepare them anytime especially the neer mor, in large batches and chill and have it as required.

Apr 1, 2009

Though aloo paratha has always been prepared at home since my childhood, I got introduced to them in a true sense when I was in delhi for sometime. The parathas which we ate in the roadside "dhabas" (restaurants) with loads of ghee on it use to taste so divine especially on the cold winter mornings.
I do make stuffed parathas at home, but not too frequently as I find the preparation very tricky. If the stuffing peeks out while rolling the dough, I lose all my patience and the whole thing becomes a huge mess. But this time I was extra careful right from the beginning taking lot of time to ensure each step is ok.
It came out really good and I regained all my confidence in making parathas and am sure am going to do this again and again.
The parathas were very mildly spiced , so even my kid could enjoy it.

Ingredients-For the dough
Wheat flour- 1cup
salt- 1/2tsp
Oil- 2tsp

For the stuffing
Potatoes- 2 large
Turmeric powder-1tsp
Salt to taste
Red chilly powder- 1/2tsp(you can use more if you want)
Garam masala- 1/2tsp
Oil- 1tsp

Ghee to brush on the parathas

Method-Stuffing-
Cook the potatoes in a pressure cooker till it is very soft. Mash them and ensure that there are no lumps. Heat oil in a pan. Add the potatoes with rest of the ingredients and mix well. Make small balls of the stuffing.

Dough-
Knead a soft and non sticky dough of the wheat flour adding salt, water and oil to it. Make small balls with the dough.

How to assemble-
Roll the ball (wheat dough) to a small circle with a rolling pin. Place the ball of stuffing in the center of the rolled dough. Cover and seal the ends. Roll them to a circle again. Sprinkle some wheat flour while rolling so that the dough doesn't stick too much.
Heat a girdle (tava). Place the stuffed paratha on the tava and cook on both sides till brown spots appear on them. Brush some ghee on them.
Serve with curds. Thats the way I prefer. But pickles are a good combination too.